The end of modversions?

Posted Nov 28, 2017 14:58 UTC (Tue) by cjmather (guest, #119916)
Parent article: The end of modversions?

The product I develop makes use of this feature. It's particularly useful on Ubuntu which rolls new kernels frequently, but breaks compatibility (for our module) infrequently.

We could try to get our code upstream, but the code is specific to our product and may not be of general interest. We could use DKMS, but it seems brittle to require enterprise customers to have a functioning toolchain just to use our product.

In the bad old days, Unix OS's like HP-UX would guarantee compatibility for kernel extensions across release families (e.g., minor releases). This made it easier for application developers and (ultimately) enterprise customers. I hope that folks keep enterprise customers in mind -- and not testers, as cited in the article -- when evaluating the utility of this feature.

The end of modversions?

Posted Nov 29, 2017 9:25 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Getting your code upstream seems like the best option to me.

The end of modversions?

Posted Nov 29, 2017 19:42 UTC (Wed) by lsl (subscriber, #86508) [Link]

Ideally, those enterprise users would test recent kernels for regressions in features they depend on. When the relevant changes have trickled down to enterprise distribution kernels it's generally too late to do anything about it.

Reading LWN is a good idea, too, obviously.